Jerome, A Poor Man eBook

And then Lucina curtesied low, with her fair curls
drooping forward over her blushing face and neck,
as pink as her corals, and Jerome bowed and strove
to say something, but he knew not what, and never
knew what he said, nor anybody else.

“’Twas the new clothes, boy,” said
the Squire in his ear. “By the Lord Harry,
’twas much as ever I knew you myself at first!
I took you for an earl over from the old country.
Lucina meant no harm. Go you now and have a talk
with her.”

Jerome wondered anxiously afterwards if he had spoken
properly to the Squire’s wife, to Mrs. Doctor
Prescott, to Miss Camilla, and the others—­if
he had looked, even, at anybody but Lucina. He
remembered the party as he might have remembered a
kaleidoscope, of which only one combination of form
and color abided with him. He realized all beside,
as a broad effect with no detail. The card-playing
and punch-drinking in the other room, the preliminary
tuning of fiddles in the hall, the triumphant strains
of a country dance, the weaving of the figures, the
gay voices of the village youths, who lost all their
abashedness as the evening went on, the supper, the
table gleaming with the white lights of silver and
the rainbow lustre of glass, the golden points of
candles in the old candelabra, the fruity and spicy
odors of cake and wine, were all as a dimness and vagueness
of brilliance itself.

He did not know, even, that Lawrence Prescott was
at Elmira’s side all the evening, and after
his father arrived, and that Elmira danced every time
with him, and set people talking and Doctor Prescott
frowning. He knew only that he had followed Lucina
about, and that she seemed to encourage him with soft,
leading smiles. That they sat on a sofa in a
corner, behind a door, and talked, that once they
stepped out on the stoop, and even strolled a little
down the path, under the trees, when she complained
of the room being hot and close. Then, without
knowing whether he should do so or not, he bent towards
her, with his arm crooked, and she slipped her hand
in it, and they both trembled and were silent for
a moment. He knew every word that Lucina had
spoken, and gave a thousand different meanings to each.
For the first time in his life, he tasted the sweets
of praise from girlish lips. Lucina had heard
of his good deeds from her father, how kind he was
to the poor and sick, how hard he had worked, how
faithful he had been to his mother and sister.
Jerome listened with bliss, and shame that he should
find it bliss. Then Lucina and he remembered
together, with that perfect time of memory which is
as harmonious as any duet, all the episodes of their
childhood.

“I remember how you gave me sassafras,”
said Lucina, “and how you would not take the
nice gingerbread that Hannah made, and how sad I felt
about it.”

“I will get some more sassafras for you to-morrow,”
said Jerome.

“And I will give you some more gingerbread if
you will take it,” said she, with a sweet coquettishness.